Volume One: The Road Out
Chapter Three
Verse Seven: A Dagger through Parchment
Marion stared at Blackhart, the rebel chieftain, in frustration. The guy had him nailed. Until he could confirm Blackhart as good guy or condemn him as bad guy, Marion was unwilling to fight him.
"How can you be a good guy if you're playing my good intentions against me?" Marion asked in Frustration.
"You were raised in one of the Locust King's cities then? The Locust King's stories are filled with good guys and bad guys. In his stories the hero is always right and the villain is always despicable, and usually opposes the people already in power. In real stories the hero is simply the one who does what is needed to keep the story turning. Heroes can be awful people, so long as they turn the story. And there was no villain in the old story before the Locust King, and I'm not even sure he is the villain. For all we know, he is the hero delivering a medicine we do not wish to receive. But that thought scares me. I cannot imagine how his actions would be necessary to the story, and so I oppose them. No, city boy shaman, I am not a good guy and I am not a bad guy. There are no good guys and no bad guys in the old stories, and I am most definitely a being of the old stories."
"Do you always monologue?"
Blackhart was not looking at him, Marion suddenly noticed. The man had shifted posture gradually, scanning the surrounding landscape as they spoke. The chieftain reached over his shoulders and pulled to simple obsidian daggers that had been concealed somewhere on his back.
"Only when I don't want the enemy to know that I see them." He said casually. The other warriors spun and looked wildly, immediately drawing tomahawks and daggers as they did. "I think you will now find uses for your tomahawks city shaman."
"I don't see a thing." Marion said, looking around as the quiet landscape.
"The things see you. Be glad you were not alone." Then Blackhart addressed the empty landscape, "I smell your oil and steel Mordred. You reek of your father's magic. You may as well loose an arrow or call the charge."
A voice echoed amidst the grasses, "Are you in a hurry to die? Father will finally acknowledge me properly after I present him with your head."
"My head would be an empty symbol little boy, as hollow as your father's respect. I am a many headed serpent, cut off my head and a thousand black hearts will rise in anger against you."
"You don't have a thousand hearts left Savage," And from a hidden depression in the grass a young teenaged boy emerged in silver plate armour emblazoned with a symbol of a cherub radiating ray of light. The boy looked nearly identical to Fitzroy, save that his hair was a curly platinum blonde. Around Marion, Blackhart and his warriors a host of knights rose out of the grasses. "Who is the wizard at your side Savage? I don't recognize his sigils?"
Marion looked down at his shirt and noticed he was wearing Harley's old shirt to annoy the devote, emblazoned with the helvetica styled letters: "WWLD?" What would Loki Do? Marion wondered when he had put the shirt on. He didn't remember choosing to wear it.
"That is none of your concern boy." Blackhart answered, to which the teenager grinned.
"Then he's important. Get him and the Chieftain, alive if possible- dead if necessary."
Marion shook his head and said to Blackhart, "I should have warned you about my bad luck."
Blackhart looked briefly at Marion, who was shocked at how sad the man's face suddenly looked, "If this is your idea of bad luck, then I hope you are never forced to experience mine."
The Knights charged and Blackhart's warriors charged. They clashed and crashed together like hurricane of muscle and bone. Blackhart himself was a stone in the river, unmoved by the current- a mountain that ignored the wind. Anything hostile that made the mistake of getting too close was crushed and rendered inert by precise strikes from strong hands holding sharp knives. Marion was the river, flowing through the chaos of the battle as though he had no substance and then dashing the unwary against the rocks as needed. Marion was pleased and horrified to realize that this was becoming normal for him.
The young teenager, Mordred, was like an eagle plucking salmon from the current of the river. Bursting into the melee with a short silver spear and impaling a warrior and then withdrawing from the chaos to strike again. Mordred and his knights outnumbered Blackhart and his warriors, but the ranks of the knights quickly began to thin out.
"Hah, they are like their King's namesake! They depend upon numbers and not skill to take the day!" Blackhart yelled in the melee.
"Not all of us!" Mordred snapped and was suddenly lunging and stabbing like a eagle might strike the surface of the river.
Blackhart was blocking and murdering two different knights at that moment, and both his weapons were occupied. Marion flowed into the space between Blackhart and Mordred, not entirely sure why he was defending a man who had openly indicated that he would use Marion for his own purposes, but defending Blackhart nonetheless. Mordred was fast and Marion was unable to position himself perfectly to defend the blow either, but his positioning proved acceptable. Marion used the hafts of both tomahawks to slam against the point of the spear and knock both spear and Mordred off balance, preventing Mordred from withdrawing as he had previously. The boy collided with Marion and the two of them tumbled to the ground amidst the growing pile of corpses. As Marion fell he found himself thinking that a pile of corpses on the ground was a somewhat redundant statement. After all, the dirt is made of corpses, really old corpses. Marion landed and the dead bodies prevented him from rolling with the fall and he found himself winded from the landing and struggling to catch his breath. He looked around to try and place the position of Mordred who would- he was certain- be readying another attack. The boy seemed the aggressive type, much more so than Fitzroy. As Marion looked for Mordred, he suddenly caught sight of something that knocked him out of his flow. Staring back at him from amidst the other corpses was his own body, clearly dead with a horrible spear wound through the throat that had very nearly separated his head from his body. Marion instinctively scrambled back and bumped into another of his corpses, this time the blow that had killed him was a sword slash that had opened him up from shoulder to abdomen. Around him, he could see half a dozen other corpses with his face staring up at him from the ground. His brain couldn't process what he was seeing and he felt panic rising up in his throat like bad tacos, when suddenly he noticed Mordred clawing his way towards Marion across the Pile of corpses and the battle snapped back into focus. Marion found the ground beneath his feet and pushed himself up to standing, knocking the teenager's clumsy spear attack backwards as he rose.
One of the older Knights saw what was happening and cried out, "The Prince is in danger! Call for aid! Call the Bone Man!"
"Our Lord is not here." A younger knight answered. "He has passed through the Shadows. I do not know how to send word to him through the Shadows."
"I know." The elder Knight answered, he paused as though in thought and then said, "Guard me as I do the ritual."
Marion watched as the elder Knight performed a series of hand motions like he was warding off evil. The knight finished by spreading his arms with his hands positioned palms up and his face turned to the sky. Marion felt something change, a connection formed between the knight and elsewhere or elsewhen. Marion could not tell what passed between the Knight and whatever he had connected to, but he felt the connection.
Marion kicked Mordred hard in the chest as the boy tried to rise to his feet, knocking him back into the growing pile of corpses. he quickly backed out of the melee, easily dispatching two knights as he retreated.
"Well monkey see, monkey do." Marion said to himself, "If they can send messages to their boss, maybe I can send messages to Harley."
Marion put himself into the same mindset he used to call the tomahawks and repeated the hands motions he had seen the knight perform, ending in the palm up position. He felt the connection opening and reached out to whatever it was- grasping for contact until finally the connection formed. Marion was hit was a wave of emotion that he could only describe as dismissal or disdain.
"I was not expecting a second transmission, especially not from the Dreamer," The Bone Man said into Marion's mind. The shock of hearing the Bone Man nearly jolted Marion out of the connection. "You fight with the Lion I see. Be careful Dreamer. Even the Lion can be corrupted if it falls victim to fear."
"I'm not afraid of you." Marion answered.
"You are separated from your other half. Fear springs from separation. Perhaps you trust the tribe? Trust your allies? But you will always be outmatched. We are the Locust, we are the swarm and we do not fight alone."
Marion pushed back in his mind against the disdain, reaching out to see where the connection led. He had a glimpse of Harley and the kids trapped in the goblin while a pitch black dog or wolf stalked towards them.
"You have seen enough Dreamer. This ends." And Marion felt himself being forced back to the battlefield, and he saw the battle still whirling beside him, but as he brought himself back he saw the suspicious eyes of Blackhart staring at him and burning like embers in a campfire.
"What are you doing?" Blackhart demanded, trying to push through the whirl of combat to reach Marion, "Why are you calling for the Locust King's troops? Are you another of his puppets? Like Myrddhin or Morrigan? Curse You!"
"We're not done yet Savage." Mordred said, stepping between Blackhart and his path to Marion.
Marion smiled in spite of himself, "You're right about one thing." He called to Blackhart as he began to run, "Your luck is worse than mine."
"This is not over city wizard!" Blackhart yelled as he engaged Mordred in battle.
Marion ran until his lung burned, his legs ached, his abs screamed in pain, and his feet were lead weights. The plains stretched out in nearly all directions. The sun was setting in what Marion assumed was roughly the west. He couldn't be sure as to whether he was in the northern or southern hemisphere, or in fact whether this place had a northern or southern hemisphere. So, he could only say that the sun was setting roughly to the west and not northwest or southwest. And thus roughly to the west he could also see mountains edging purple in the far distance. And now that he was not running for his life, Marion could also see a huge sparkling tower of some sort, crystalline or glass far off in what Marion assumed was the east.
"If this is a vision or a dream," Marion said gasping for breath, "Why does everything hurt so much?"
He stopped and took and appraisal of his situation. He was trapped in this alternate world again, this time on purpose by the Bone Man: somebody who was overtly working against Marion. That same Bone Man was also apparently hunting his best friend and the kids they were now protecting, using some sort of ghost or shadow dog.
"Right, so if he trapped me here, then it's because I could help. So I need to help. How might I be able to help them? Well I can call the tomahawks. The Bone Man said I was waking up to my role in the story, so what? That probably means Harley can do this too, but I've figured out how to do more of this stuff than he is. That would make me more of a threat to them recapturing Maia and Fitzroy, which seems to be what they want. Okay. So I have to figure out how to use my powers, do I call them powers? Is that the right word? Maybe, who knows? Alright, so I need to connect back to the real world, if the other world is the real world. And I did that before, I mean okay, I got the Bone Man and not Harley, but I saw Harley. So let's try that again."
Again Marion went through the motions he had seen the knight perform and reached out with the same feeling as previous. A little more familiar with the process Marion noticed this time that there were more potential connections that what was immediately obvious. This time Marion tried to reach out and seek not just any connection, but to feel for sympathetic connections and found that he could feel the difference in demeanour of the connections that he could feel. He found a connection that felt gentle and grasped it.
"Can you hear me?" Marion projected into the connection.
"Marion? is that you dear?" The voice answered, and Marion recognized the presence. It was Mrs. Trilby, "I thought the boys Mrs. Boots described, sounded like you and your boyfriend."
"Harley is not my boyfriend Mrs. Trilby. Harley is straight."
"Oh, that's a shame. You would have made such a cute couple dear."
"Mrs. Trilby, if I can talk to you, then I'm assuming you're part of the story and I need your help. I'm the Dreamer."
"Oh. I'm so sorry dear. I was so hoping that it was a brain tumour Storytellers don't live very long these days, none of the main characters do. It's so much better to be a supporting character. You do the minimum the plot requires and stay out of the way. We lost so long ago, and nobody has resurrected our story in over a century. Only a few tribes in remote corners still live our story. The rest of us hear it second hand if we hear it at all."
"Mrs. Trilby, the Bone Man has trapped my in another world and a big black ghost dog is hunting Harley in the real world. I need your help."
"Oh dear. The Hound. You can't stop the hound dear. It smells fear, you know."
"Can I slow it down or distract it?"
"You could sic a familiar on it. Maybe an astral projection or a summoned holographic form of it."
"What does that mean?" Marion asked.
"I could let you throw ghost version of Mercer at him. It would slow down the hound, but it would make it angry too."
"So we'd be delaying it, but making thing worse in the long run?"
"Pretty much dear."
"That's been our working strategy so far, why change it now? What do I do?"
"Call for aid, dear. Just call for aid from people who care. You do not fight alone dear. Tell them that. Trust your allies."
Marion nodded, "I've heard that before. Ok,"
He reached out with the connection seeking Harley. When he found a connection that felt right, he raised his voice within the connection and cried out, "We do not fight alone! Trust your allies! Call for aid! I call for aid!"
